Heat 1a: Pedestal
by scribblemyname
Summary: He made her flesh and blood, a woman. Romy drabbles
1. First Touch

HEAT STORY ARC

STORY SUMMARY**:** He made her flesh and blood, a woman.

DISCLAIMERS: All characters and organizations (with the exception of small, mostly unnamed minor characters) throughout the story arc are the product of Marvel.

CANONICAL NOTES: This story arc accepts X1, X2, and X3 as canon. All other sources of canon are ignored or modified as desired.

LANGUAGE AND ACCENTS: Cajun French is courtesy of Heavenmetal (many thanks). I will attempt to reproduce accents in this story arc.

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**Pedestal**

**- 1a -**

**Story Summary:** She wanted off the pedestal. Romy drabbles.

**Canonical Notes:** Post X3.

**Author's Note: **Don't ask. Let's just say _Moments_ is doing whatever it's doing, and I still wanted to write drabbles. I asked the muse and this was the reply.

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**First Touch**

He'd never meant to touch her. Girl on a pedestal, burn you if you dare come hither, everybody warned him no. He didn't mean to, hadn't tried, but that didn't mean a thing.

She drew back, flinching like he'd hurt her. Those green eyes went wide and glittering and what had started out as a friendly conversation between the new team member (him) and his new training partner (her) ended abruptly with an abandoned mug of coffee, still steaming where she dropped it, a chip of its porcelain bottom broken on the floor, and a migraine roaring in his skull.


	2. First Denial

**First Denial**

It hadn't happened.

She hadn't laughed at his good humor, his stories of the south she missed. She hadn't wondered what he didn't say, wanted understanding and to know him, wanted something better gone; hadn't reached for the same coffee, let skin brush against his skin. She hadn't felt her world jarred and been inside him and become him; hadn't watched him reel.

She wasn't shaking against the back of her door, wasn't hearing Cajun thoughts.

That night, she touched Logan, hugged Ororo, slapped Bobby, proving once again: Cured.

Cured. She was Cured. She could touch. She couldn't—

She hadn't.


	3. First Bond

**First Bond**

He found her with Logan's motorcycle, thought it a little odd at first. That is until he saw the keen gleam in her eye, the practiced appraisal of a wounded beauty, the confident way she settled down to work.

"You like motorcycles, chère?"

She popped her head up, startled, then eyed him warily. "Yeah..."

He smirked at her over his own Harley, grinned when her gaze blazed hungrily over it. "Mind if I join you?"

She licked her lips, eyes still on the motorcycle, and he almost laughed, but he didn't. Not at that shy smile, that hesitancy.

"Sure, sugah."


	4. First Attraction

**First Attraction**

He was a southern boy to the bone. He opened doors for her, pulled out her chair, then promptly cooked up a heavenly warm-smelling feast of southern cooking.

She pretended away their first encounter in the self-same kitchen and simply enjoyed the difference between her own boyfriend, Bobby, and this new X-Man. Bobby was cold, icy as his mutation, and firm and northern and old guard rules. Remy was warm and spicy and all shadows and liquid motion and _southern_ and old school gentleman and it warmed a part of her that had been cool too long.

She liked it.


	5. First Training

**First Training**

She was a fighter, all right. He got the hard end of her boot, the backside of a sharp elbow in his ribs, and a floor rushing to meet his face before he hardly knew what hit him.

He liked it.

She was fire and she was passion. She fought hard and dirty and for the sheer pleasure of it. He fought her back in like terms.

One look at Logan's face and he knew he'd get a talking later. No, don't you dare touch my girl. She doesn't deserve to be hurt.

But she does deserve to live, neh?


	6. First Certainty

**First Certainty**

She was kissing him when it happened. One moment, she's her own self wanting to be so close she can never walk away. The next she was screaming over her boyfriend's body one more time and it was one time too many.

Logan found her first and yanked her into his arms before she could run away and she wanted him to stop _touching_ her. But he wouldn't let her go.

Hank and Storm checked Bobby, made certain he was alive, if unconscious. Students gathered in the hallway. Like before.

This could not be happening. It couldn't. It just couldn't.


	7. Double Take

**Double Take**

He heard the official news in passing, whispers in the mansion hallways that somehow always found their way into his ear. He shuffled his cards, made sense of the chaos, and grew angry.

He could rip them all over the coals for the way they put her up on a pedestal where no one could reach her but Logan and from which she couldn't climb down. They talked to her, looked at her, but none of them would _be_ with her, no matter how starved and lonely those emerald eyes became. They treated her like a friend with their words, but somehow left out all the things that mattered. They didn't hug her, kept their distance. Others hated her, viciously, for those three weeks of freedom from her mutation—_curse_—she bought with the Cure. Her boyfriend sought comfort elsewhere, and she _let_ him, even encouraged it.

He didn't know her, not even her name. Just Rogue, thank ya, to all that passed in and out of the revolving door of the X-Men. He didn't know what made her smile, what made her laugh. But he knew that somewhere inside that poisoned, lovely skin beat the heart of a woman.


	8. Second Bond

**Second Bond**

He surprised her. Not like he hadn't from day one, but the last person she expected to show up at her door at an unholy hour before dawn was her new training partner.

"Come bearin' gifts," he said with a cheeky grin.

And he did. If it wasn't for that quart of neapolitan ice cream dangling from his fingertips, she never would have let him in. But she did.

They left the door open and she talked. A little. Mostly, she just ate ice cream, asked him enough about his past to know he didn't talk himself.

It was nice.


	9. Second Touch

**Second Touch**

They didn't really talk about whatever it was they had going, and that suited Remy just fine. They were friends: cohorts in the Danger Room, accomplices at midnight food theft, and working partners on the bikes.

He wasn't afraid to get close to her, but she had to learn how not flinch when he slung an arm over her shoulder or got too close in a fight. Just two weeks before she was dressed in gloves and long sleeves and everything she needed to keep the world at bay.

"Quit worryin' so much."

"Shut up," she replied with a grin.


	10. Second Certainty

**Second Certainty**

She slammed her way into the mansion and stood sobbing against the door. Always took so _much_ to make her cry. But this...

_Betrayal._

It stabbed her in the gut and she couldn't see for the tears, and when she felt his arms around her, she fought him hard, struggling, until she recognized him and let herself cry against his chest until that feeling finally let go. He just held on to her, stroking her hair, until she quieted and pulled away.

She stood there, flushed with embarrassment. She hated to be weak, not in front of anybody. Even him.


	11. Second Denial

**Second Denial**

It was the first time he'd ever seen that porcelain composure crack. Anger tightened in his chest. He didn't know who had said what, but he knew it wasn't right.

With one gloved hand, he reached out slowly. She watched warily but let him smooth back her tangled mane, the silken white and soft chestnut. Then he leaned over and kissed her hard, briefly, but enough to make her gasp.

It hurt like diable, a piece of his soul ripped out, leaving an empty, dizzy weariness in his body.

He turned and walked away like he didn't feel a thing.


	12. Second Attraction

**Second Attraction**

He was beautiful. The thought was like fire in her veins, a sort of shocking realization, a mirror image of what he felt for her.

It wasn't love, it wasn't lust, it wasn't even genuine attraction. It was admiration and respect and protectiveness and fierce disbelief that anyone could cause her pain. And there he was inside her in stark and absolute detail, and she couldn't help but feel the same for him.

Knowing she could hate him, knowing she could _hurt_ him, and he chose to touch her—_kiss_ _her_—something Bobby never would have done.

She was reeling.


	13. Second Training

**Second Training**

The Danger Room never felt that dangerous to him, but continuous training was his second nature. He fought until he could barely stand, then killed the sim. The sudden silence was deafening, more the quiet conversation that finally reached his ears from those waiting their turn.

"What were you thinking, 'Ro?" Logan demanded.

Storm's response was clipped. "I _am_ glad, for her sake as well as ours. The Cure should never have been made."

"She _heard_ you."

And there it was. What sent her flying into the mansion and into his arms.

He lifted his head and restarted the program.


	14. Double Exposure

**Double Exposure**

She studied his reactions carefully. He had a way of changing the dynamics of the entire team.

He was cool toward Storm for weeks and she couldn't help but think he knew, though the weather goddess seemed bewildered by her friend's sudden distance. He joined for _her_, after all. Logan wore a supremely self-satisfied expression.

He started flirting with her shamelessly. He played dirty in the Danger Room, slid innuendo into casual conversation over meals, in front of Bobby. She didn't really look at him when he bantered with her. She looked at Bobby and his indifference with a frightening intentness. Bobby couldn't touch her. They were mostly friends with a different kind of benefits, but—

_Remy kissed her_.

It overtook her slowly the way people changed around her. Some, like Kitty, followed Remy's lead, learned new ways to touch her, be around her, make her feel included. Others that had been so harsh now ignored her completely, perhaps to save themselves from him. Those devil eyes, burning fire on smoldering black, were not kind to those who treated her unkindly.

It was a novel feeling, novel idea. They were just _friends_.

_But _Remy_ kissed her._

She started flirting back.


	15. Third Certainty

**Third Certainty**

She didn't come down for breakfast, so he knocked on her door. A little investigation turned up the surprising (if welcome) news that she had broken up with Bobby.

"Please don't tell anyone?" she asked softly.

He took one look at her—red-rimmed eyes, stiff posture, curled up in the bed—and bit off all the things he wanted to say. _Good for you. He was cheating on you. He didn't deserve you_. Instead, he gave her that look he knew she could read, one eyebrow raised, _y' know y' don't have t' ask dat._

He answered her anyway. "Promise."


	16. Third Bond

**Third Bond**

She didn't feel like living, couldn't say why breaking up with Bobby had her so depressed, but he _was_ her first steady relationship—and her first failed one.

Remy was sweet. He made sure she didn't starve, all holed up in her room, but didn't bother her to talk when she didn't feel like it. She heard him run off more than one would-be invader—Kitty, Jubilee, Storm, Theresa—each one so sure she should get out and live again.

"Do _you _think Ah'm bein' silly?" she asked him once.

"Still a loss, chère." A light shrug. "We all grieve."


	17. Third Training

**Third Training**

"Late for trainin'," he said before he hauled her off the bed in a sputtering mess of blanket and glare.

Her reaction was reflexive, almost instant backlash of elbow and leg swinging out to catch his. He was faster, more awake, and deflected easily.

"De way I see it," "—blocked another hit— "we can practice in de Danger Room"—spun her around—"or right here."

He caught her back against him, and she flushed darkly. Their breath came hard.

She stiffened then and drawled, "Ah see."

He chuckled at her annoyance, then suddenly found himself on the carpet.

"Here."


	18. Third Denial

**Third Denial**

Logan found her down in the kitchen at one o'clock in the morning and gave her that _look_. He made a show of sniffing the air, and she knew it had nothing to do with the fragrance of Cajun cooking that lingered. Well... Almost nothing.

She crossed her arms and glared. "Got something to say?" she demanded.

He started to speak, then suddenly stopped. He tilted his head and studied her. "You really like him, don't you?"

It was her turn to suddenly stop. She opened her mouth, then shut it, then buried her arms in dishwater. "Won't wash themselves."


	19. Third Attraction

**Third Attraction**

The first time he invited her into his room, he left the door open—like a gentleman. That was as far as the gentleman went. He was merciless at cards.

She'd accuse him of cheating while narrowing a fierce emerald glare at her hand, while he chuckled and explained to her what he had just done. He loved to watch her throw herself into the game, learning as if she was born to it.

"Mais, chère, y' poker face is terrible."

She snorted and laid down her hand.

He winced.

"Don't mattah that much with a flush." She smiled sweetly.


	20. Third Touch

**Third Touch**

Late nights playing cards were becoming a habit, and she found herself anticipating their ritual _too_ much. He wasn't afraid to touch her—tickle her, elbow her, take a swipe at her with his pillow. She could feel fear under her skin every single time.

But when he brushed gloved fingers against her cheek to tuck a white lovelock behind her ear with the bare ones, she stopped breathing.

"Ah wish ya wouldn't," she told him softly. She stared at her hand, frowning over her cards.

"Chère..." His voice sounded sad and reproachful all at once. "I wish y' _would_."


	21. Double Play

**Double Play**

They didn't join in the game of truth or dare. He sat off to the side on the window seat playing solitaire. It wasn't long before she laughed off the group and settled on her stomach in front of him. She crossed her legs and kicked her bare feet in the air, her long skirt pooling at the back of her knees.

She fiddled with a skewed card.

"Y' don' wan' t' join dem?" he asked.

She shook her head. Her hair was down and he watched how it rippled like thick silk. He wanted to touch it, run his hands through it, but he didn't want her to leave.

So he flipped over another card.

"Secrets don't have to exist for me," she said suddenly. "When Ah was with Bobby, Ah wanted ta get insahde him, understand him, and be understood... Ah think Ah'd lahke ta _not_ understand for once."

He considered that. He had never thought that maybe the reason she was so forgiving was because she always, always understood.

"Y' don't know de first t'ing about me, petite." He uncovered the last card.

She stared up at him, something nameless flashing in her emerald eyes. "Ah know."


	22. Fourth Touch

**Fourth Touch**

In a moment, she'd changed everything, and she was still frozen, disbelieving. In one heartbeat, he was wiping the poker table with her to her chagrin; in the next, she boldly reached out and touched him—_touched him_.

Nothing happened.

They stared at each other, breathing harshly, neither moving. She could feel the rough texture of his jaw beneath her fingertips (he always had that shadow), but his voice was silent in her head. She could not feel him, be him, understa—

_The look on her own face. His startled gasp._

She jerked her hand away—"Ah'm sorry"—and fled.


	23. Fourth Attraction

**Fourth Attraction**

He went over it again and again in his head. Laugh, touch, silence, fear, drain. Laugh, touch, silence...

Something in the silence was missing. The last time... He raked one hand over his eyes, trying to think above the roaring in his skull. He hadn't forgotten the chipped porcelain, the brush of that soft skin.

Touch; silence; fear, wonder, and curiosity; drain and this pounding in his head.

What happened? What in the world happened? Fear? Wonder? Curiosity?

Laugh, touch, silence, fear, drain.

"Merde." He gave in about fifteen minutes into this dizzy, whirling feeling and went to find her.


	24. Fourth Denial

**Fourth Denial**

It hadn't happened.

She hadn't brushed his skin with her bare fingers, felt the shadow across his jaw, hadn't itched to trace those contours and hadn't had the freedom to do it. Her heart was not pounding beneath her skin. Her hands were not remembering.

She'd absorbed him. _Absorbed_ him. That's what she did. She was poison; she was danger; she was death wrapped up in a pretty package.

She hadn't touched him, not and felt him, unhurt, unharmed for far too long to be real. It was a fluke of her sense of time. She'd absorbed him.

She had.


	25. Fourth Certainty

**Fourth Certainty**

She clearly wasn't anywhere near ready to talk. He honestly couldn't care less.

"What was dat?"

"Ah absorbed yah," she retorted as if he shouldn't have asked.

He had never had much patience for denial. "Not dat, chère," he said harshly. "Before."

Before she absorbed him, in those precious moments when she had touched him without causing any harm, when he thought he'd never breathe again.

She hugged herself a little tighter and whispered, "Ah don't know."

He reached for her then, gently pulling her into his arms until she calmed down and relaxed against him. "Don't y' want t'?"


	26. Fourth Bond

**Fourth Bond**

She thought she could never be more frightened than when she first gained her mutation, or when Logan went flying through the windshield of his truck, surely dead, or when Magneto told her coldly he would kill her, or when Bobby almost died beneath her terrible touch.

She was wrong.

The idea of _touching_ someone, _for real_, of having even those achingly brief moments of freedom, made her fingers itch, her heart long, and her mind start screaming to the rest of her to back away.

"Calm, chère," he whispered, too close against her skin. "We'll practice."

She swallowed. Hard.


	27. Fourth Training

Author Note: Very sorry, **coup fatal**, about the major delay on other chapters. I got swamped with serious HUGE real-life urgent projects at work that have been keeping me up all hours of the night, etc. Also, I promise to everyone who hasn't received a review reply, it's coming. Give me a week or two.

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**Fourth Training**

They didn't really talk about whatever it was they had going, and that suited Remy just fine. Nights, they spent holed up in his bedroom or hers, still playing cards, still with her face turned away when she shuddered under his touch.

"Y' play better wit'out somet'ing riding on it."

"Shut up," she muttered and lost again.

The first time she'd ever touched him, she absorbed him instantly. The second, she failed to absorb him until moments later. And now...

She held out her hand and he took it, wishing she would look at him before—"Nothing."—she pulled away.


	28. Double Bind

A/N: I owe y'all a lot of fics and review replies. All I can say is soon.*

*Soon is relative.

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**Double Bind**

Rogue had known her share of mystery men. Sooner or later, all their secrets came clear, flayed from their mind under the gentle brush of fingers or lips or learned in the sharing of time and confidence, like her ever-closer relationship with Logan. True intimacy could never come from skin against skin; she knew it; they knew it. She wanted them to _tell_ her their secrets because they trusted her, because she _cared_.

And wasn't that the problem?

Remy changed everything. He was her friend, her comrade, the guy who kicked her legs from under her just to remind her to stay on her guard, the one who brought her ice cream when she broke up with _someone else_, and now, he wanted more. He wanted her to touch him, to figure out why she could.

But she didn't _want_ to understand his mystery. And the more she got to know him, the more her final frontier would vanish away into nothing.

He would frown at her sometimes from across the room, trying to read her. Rogue would find herself turning or walking away.

She didn't want to know his secrets. She didn't want to understand. She only wanted him.


	29. Fifth Touch

A/N: I'm cleaning up my profile, merging fics, and taking requests for the entire month of December, a fic or a chapter a day. If you want me to update something or write something short and new, visit my LJ linked on the profile. Right at the top.

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**Fifth Touch**

Betting touch wasn't supposed to be addictive. He was _supposed_ to be helping her with her powers and figuring out why they weren't working on him the way they had before. That was it.

But it _was_ addictive.

Running gloved fingers over her bare arms and shoulders, making her shudder. Holding her against him on _his_ bed. Touching her skin on skin. Trying to remember to breathe at the combination of desperation and longing in her eyes.

"What is it you _want_, chère?" he would ask, whispered against her neck or hair.

She would shake her head and never answer.


	30. Fifth Training

A/N: _Somebody_ asked for a quick update, so here it is! Sorry that my other, longer chaptered fics are languishing. I went through a phase where I had little time to write, so I wrote drabbles to keep up the practice, and now I have to relearn how to write in longer chunks. Ugh. But soon!

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**Fifth Training**

It was getting too intense. Rogue was the first to notice on one of the few occasions where she did pick up a faint tendril of thought and emotion. Remy was falling for her. Hard. He _wanted _her, and she _already_ wanted him.

The next night, Logan asked her for help fixing the transmission on his bike. Rogue knew that Remy would be waiting for her in his room—to play cards, to practice, to share the easy banter and conversations they had yet to lose their grip on. (The simplicity of friendship apparently died hard.)

She stood Remy up.


	31. Fifth Denial

A/N: Apologies this took so long (and for all the other un-updated fics). Working as fast as I can.

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**Fifth Denial**

He wasn't angry when she didn't come. He'd neglected the circles he frequented for too long anyway. It was an easy thing to slip into his trench coat and Gambit persona and into the night on his motorcycle.

A flirt here, a smile there. He charmed his way into the club, kept them coming, kept them dancing, made himself forget those incredible green eyes he could drown in and a girl who could make a night on the town pale by comparison.

"What's your name, honey?" asked some blonde who might've given him hers.

He grinned fiercely. "Does it matter?"


	32. Fifth Certainty

A/N: And it gets worse.

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**Fifth Certainty**

"You're drunk," Rogue said coldly when he walked in the door.

Red and black eyes snapped up to hers and narrowed. "An' since when we tell each ot'er how to live?"

But it wasn't bourbon (men's tastes rarely changed) that had her breath tightening and eyes stinging. It was the smudge of lipstick, the whiff of perfume still on him that told her clearly what else he'd been doing.

She spun on her heel when his own cold voice stopped her, "Or was it m' imagination y' jus' decided not t' come?"

They both knew it would only get worse.


	33. Fifth Attraction

**A/N:** Promise to catch up on review replies in the nearish future. Working on a chaptered fic that I want out the door in the next week. Those will come after that.

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**Fifth Attraction**

She wasn't supposed to be so beautiful when she was angry, wasn't supposed to be more attractive to him when she was trying so hard to push him away.

This wasn't what friendship was supposed to be like.

Remy waved her off and shrugged out of his trench coat while starting toward his room. "See you tomorrow, neh?" He would too, even if he had to drag her out of a Danger Room session with Logan. He wanted to see her, talk with her.

Later.

Rogue's fiery green eyes sparkled with anger, but she nodded shortly—"Fine"—and walked away.


	34. Fifth Bond

**A/N:** Promise to catch up on review replies in the nearish future. And _Safe_, then _Son o' de Guild_.

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**Fifth Bond  
**

They didn't bother to play cards. The aura of sameness, routine they had used to fight off the reality of what was happening between them fell away the moment Rogue walked in the door.

_Just touch._

Hands grasping, the heat of their bodies, dancing to music, whispering close enough to brush each other's skin. She wanted to laugh, to cry at the nearness but only managed to hold him closer, touch him longer.

"Y' try touchin' anyone else?" he asked, quietly, offhand—as if he didn't need the answer.

She shook her head, felt the scrape of stubble. "No."


	35. Double or Nothing

**A/N:** Didn't even have to write this one. It was already there.

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**Double or Nothing  
**

She rode out with Logan in the morning, hollering with pleasure from the back of his motorcycle. Three days later, Remy offered her help on her own. For the first time since she'd met him and they'd been working bikes together, she turned him down cold.

Red eyes narrowed and grew darker.

She double-booked Danger Room sessions with Logan and started skipping her scheduled spars with her partner. Couldn't even say what it was frightening her so badly, except that look in his eyes when he laughed and the way her gut knotted every time he came so _close_ and the way she watched his mouth and his grace and how his muscles rippled when he moved, and she wanted to be so _close_.

"Ya just got a death wish, swamp rat?" She flinched out from under his arm.

His jaw tightened. "What is _wrong _wit' y'?"

She hugged herself, needing comfort, and turned away. "Ah told ya. Gettin' close ta me is death."

Perhaps the long silence made her feel he'd finally gotten it, he'd back off. But when he spoke again, he was so close, she could feel his breath warming her temple.

"Non, chère. _Touchin'_ y' is."


	36. Another Training

**A/N:**I totally flipped POV last chapter—naughty me, but that's what the story needed. No new chapters for a few days anywhere. I'm hoping to get some out soon, but real life is being a bear.

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**Another Training  
**

They fought. He was pushing her again when he knew it would just make her vicious, but she took the dare.

A swipe at the cashier when she handed over her card. Brushing past Kitty, arm on arm. The swiftest kiss on the cheek Logan had probably ever received.

Intakes of breath. The faintest flinch. A glare from Rogue at _him_.

Only him, his skin, and months before, she'd almost laid him flat. He didn't like the implications, but she wasn't talking, barely tolerated his asking. He was starting to think she _knew _why she absorbed them—and not him.


	37. Another Certainty

**Another Certainty**

She hated what he did to her. Somewhere between fighting the good fight and the laughter and his comforting her after she broke up with Bobby, she did something she never should have done. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had fallen for Remy—hard.

Anger at herself bled over into anger at him. "Ya just _want_ me to hurt you?"

And Remy's eyes burned darker because she wasn't hurting him and he couldn't understand it. Or maybe they were really screwed up enough that he _did_ want that.

Hurt him, touch him, know him, love him. All of it was want.


	38. Another Touch

**A/N:** Putting it up to vote. Post all remaining chapters at once or daily update?

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**Another Touch**

He hated what she did to him. It was all too easy to move from caring how others treated her to caring _about_ her to… No, he wasn't ready to say those words.

"Dieu!" And he was lashing out in return. "Since when y' got a claim on dis one t' tell me what t' do?"

"Y'all seem _fahne_ with claiming me!" She hadn't hidden her resentment at their working on her mutation. Her body angrily followed the angry words.

He caught her arms, grappled with her, pinned her against the wall, breathing hard with the effort. "Rogue. Dat's de point."


	39. Another Denial

**A/N:** And the vote seemed to be for all at once, so here goes.

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**Another Denial**

He wanted her to claim him. Rogue wanted to hear him yell and push her away because she was just too _close,_ and he didn't understand what it was that had her running.

"Shut up," she said softly, fiercely. "Shut up." You don't know what you're talking about, don't know what you're asking for. I can't do it. _We_ can't do this.

Blazing fiery eyes on darkness narrowed, and his hands tightened over her wrists. "Non."

Then she was fighting him for real, letting herself up with a sharp kick and into a fight that belonged in the Danger Room.


	40. Another Bond

**Another Bond**

They avoided each other for two weeks. Logan kept an eye on Rogue as far as Remy could tell, but the man surprised him one evening by instead showing up in the bar Remy had claimed for himself just outside of Westchester.

"Gumbo."

Remy had to laugh at that and offered him a chair. He didn't know the Wolverine well, but he knew the man treated Rogue right and had earned Stormy's trust. "Y' came t' drink?"

"Nah,"—though he threw a drink back anyway—"Came to tell you to stop fighting what you can't change."

Remy stopped sharply. Rogue.


	41. Another Attraction

**Another Attraction**

Wasn't that the problem? He couldn't change it, only fight it; he was losing worse than he'd ever lost. He loved her: spitfire, southern sass, and vulnerability wrapped up in a woman who didn't want to be loved. Always _had_ loved the challenge.

Stupid, stupid. He never should've fallen for his best friend.

"You've asked her what she wants?" Logan went on. "Ask her what she doesn't."

"She doesn't want me," Remy muttered back, reaching for his bourbon. That was half of why he wanted her so badly.

Logan shook his head. "If you believe that, Gumbo, you're a fool."


	42. Double Jeopardy

**Double Jeopardy**

"Y'all aren't half as tough as ya let on," she fumed aloud. Her wrench made a satisfying clang on the gasket she was adjusting. "Meddlesome, overgrown teddy bear," she added with some vim.

Logan ignored her and wiped the engine grease off his hands. "So what's bothering you, kid?"

"You are!" she snapped. "And Ah'm not a kid."

She wasn't dumb enough to not blame Logan for vanishing an hour after Remy had, then her promptly having to put up with said training partner and former friend showing up in her room that evening, challenging her to a game of cards as if nothing had changed.

"It's mah lahfe, mah friend, mah choice whether Ah'm going t—"

"Rogue," Logan cut her over unapologetically and earning another glare. "What's bothering you?"

She gave a stubborn bolt a good whack, then turned back to pack up her toolbox, still fuming. "I did this once," she said bluntly.

"Bobby and Gumbo don't even begin to be similar."

She glared at him. "Ah can't have what Ah want." There. She'd admitted it. Even if Logan didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

Logan shrugged, not trying to understand. "You can have him."


	43. Final Denial

**Final Denial**

He didn't know what to make of her showing up at his door in the middle of the night, arms crossed and glaring, but nevertheless determined to make herself at home in his room to talk. It amused him enough to let her.

Only she didn't talk. She chewed her lip and shook her head at herself and reached out her hand in offering.

For once, he didn't take it. "What are y' doin', chère?"

"Ah don't want ta be scared of mah skin," she said fiercely.

It made him measure her for a long moment. Then he kissed her.


	44. Final Certainty

**Final Certainty**

It felt like diable, a piece of his soul ripped out through her mouth, but this time, she was holding him back, clinging to him like she wanted this more than he did.

She pulled away and he had to lean agains the wall to hold himself up. Rogue's steady gaze challenged him. Was he okay with this?

He couldn't deny she had a point. Whatever they had was anything but healthy and like as not, they'd tear each other apart, but it was only too sweet to put themselves back together again.

He reached out and kissed her again.


	45. Final Touch

**Final Touch**

This time, she accepted her lot, accepted that she was the Rogue and ain't nothing going to change that. She kissed him and held on and let the knowledge of who he was stay under his own skin. She didn't absorb him.

When he released her, she could see the questions burning in his eyes, and it was finally time to lay down her cards and tell him that all those times they'd touched, not touched, almost touched...

_"Y' don't know de first t'ing about me, petite."_

_"Ah know."_

She had to not want in order to have.


	46. Final Bond

**Final Bond**

She didn't want to know. Remy could barely fathom the difference between intimacy and understanding or that the difference apparently meant everything.

"Your lahfe is yours, sugah," she told him breezily, reading her book on his bed, finally content.

He wanted to pull her close, tell her no, it's _our_ life, but he liked that soft, sweet smile when he caressed her, drew her against him and asked if she was his. He liked how she laughed and kissed him just to prove it.

Later, they might yell at each other over something, tear each other apart, but not now.


	47. Final Training

**Final Training**

He didn't mind startling the team into a new reality.

If Rogue was dangerous, it was her choice. He touched her whenever he felt like: drawing her close, lending her power in the Danger Room, brushing her cheek affectionately when he only had a moment. He drew the stares of Rogue's friends, the students, the staff, and he didn't care.

Never mind they _still_ lit into each other when they disagreed, still fought, still avoided each other when one or the other pushed too hard. Never mind whether he was good for her or she for him. She was his.


	48. Final Attraction

**Final Attraction**

He made her flesh and blood, a woman. He gave her dreams of babies, skin, and sweat. He was everything she wanted.

She hadn't wanted Bobby's adoration, the girls' fear, Ororo's pity, or even Logan's protectiveness—all the things Remy refused to give her. She wanted the way he looked at her: like a woman who gave as good as she got, love or war. She wanted the way he fought her, claimed her, made love with her, made her. She wanted his smirk, his touch, his fire, his cool. He was just so _real._

She wanted off the pedestal.

_~ fin ~_


End file.
